Amidst the chaos and technicalities of this complicated world, there lies a treasure that avid readers and researchers get to visit and acquire daily. That treasure is the treasure of knowledge and exposure. While there are numerous benefits of reading, incorporating reading into your life can prove to be life-changing. Reading 20 minutes a day shouldn’t be a big deal for us since an average American spends almost 7 hours staring at a screen out of the 24 hours they have.
Cutting down our negative habits and paving the way for such healthy habits can be challenging initially, but it’s worth taking on. Since reading is usually perceived as a “nerd” habit, devoting just 20 minutes out of your day can have a profound impact on your routine. Reading 20 minutes a day sounds insignificant, yet carrying out a new habit for several minutes straight can be overwhelming if it’s not your thing.
Why read 20 minutes a day?
Consistently reading 20 minutes daily brings benefits one can’t even think of. The figure 20 minutes is chosen because it’s relatively easier to carry out a habit consistently for this duration. Twenty minutes isn’t little and neither big to start with. It can be the perfect threshold to aim to develop a consistent habit like reading and to experience the potential joy and benefits it brings.
Reading 20 minutes a day isn’t just a hypothetical or arbitrary thing. It is backed by research and experience. Devoting 20 minutes a day out of 1440 minutes isn’t a big deal to commit to something, but it can leave lasting effects. Numerous studies reveal that reading for this duration can have several advantages, both in personal development and for your well-being. Some benefits that stand out are as follows.
1. Improved Focus
Developing a habit of consistent reading can help you focus better on tasks, work, and study in your life. In order to read and comprehend, it requires focus and attention toward the particular text. Reading 20 minutes a day builds the power of excruciating concentration and allows you to perform deep work and drain the shallow work to thrive better in this economy. Personally, reading for a few minutes throughout the day works like a charm. Enabling me to focus better on my classes and work.
2. Stress reliever
Reading a book of any genre can prove to ease your tensions from anxious worldly affairs. It gives you moments of being zoned out and delves you into the context of the particular material. It provides you with a stress-free break from the affairs of the world and keeps your mental health in check. A study carried out in 2009 by Sussex University researchers shows that reading can relieve 68% of stress in the human mind.
3. Knowledge Compounder
Reading something certainly means you’re studying or going through someone’s words. It can be fiction, non-fiction, some sort of research, or a hypothesis. Whatever you tend to read, you’re either gaining direct knowledge or getting to see the world and stories from a completely different perspective. For example, reading a self-help book allows you to gain direct knowledge of the topic or techniques the author is emphasizing. Reading some pieces of classic fiction from the likes of Ernest Hemingway can help you gain new perspectives and acknowledge the work of others. Reading gives your brain kind of a workout that improves your memory and ability to remember things efficiently.
4. Enhances skills
A habit like reading not only brings direct benefits but also sharpens other critical skills of daily life. Since reading 20 minutes a day opens the sea to 1.8 Million words annually, it polishes your vocabulary and word bank in your head. Ultimately improving your reading and communication skills and allowing you to develop a strong expression in writing and a sound authority in communication.
5. Fosters better quality of sleep
Research has shown that reading fosters a better quality of sleep since it’s not associated with any sort of screen. In times when screens are dominant in our routines, and everyone carries smart devices in their pockets, reading has been an underrated habit to perform before sleeping. Reading helps to slow down your brain when it’s creating unaccountable dopamine from mindless scrolling throughout the day, paving the way forward for a deep sleep.
How to add 20 minutes of reading into your life?
1. Find the genre or material you enjoy.
Initiating a habit and making it consistent in your routine is hard if it’s not something that you like or are interested in. Find the genre you would like to read. From a broader perspective, classify it either by fiction or non-fiction. Later, both of these classifications include genres that you can explore such as fantasy, sci-fi, romance, thriller, etc, in the former and self-help, business, spirituality, science, etc, in the latter.
2. Keep a book by your side.
Keeping a physical book by your side that you aspire to read or are currently reading serves as a visual cue for triggering that habit. This idea of visual cues comes from James Clear, who encourages you to set signs in your surroundings to trigger that certain habit. Keeping a book by your side would lure you to read it, eventually even if you don’t remember or make time for it. Anyway, it’s always better to keep a book by your side as a companion than keep it on a shelf or drawer.
3. Allot a specific time.
Making time particularly to read 20 minutes a day can become challenging since you might be into your routine and completely forget about reading. To overcome this, you can allot a specific time window to this habit so it becomes a ritual for you.
Let’s suppose before going to bed, you remind yourself to read for twenty minutes. Now, every time you are on your bed before sleeping, it may remind you to pick up a book to read. (Again, you can pair it with keeping a book by your bed as a visual cue.) Moreover, it would become a ritual over time that you read some lines before you pass out.
To conclude, reading 20 minutes a day isn’t a set standard. You can vary it along the way and increase it according to your liking and routine. Initially, it serves as a good parameter or a breeding ground for a habit to progress and prosper. Dedicating twenty-odd minutes from your day can be transformative for you in terms of self-growth. So, pick up a book and embark on the journey of exploring the oceans of knowledge present between the pages and unlock the transformative power of reading.